Cover Image: A Guest in the House

A Guest in the House

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Member Reviews

Emily Carroll's artwork continues to blow me away. Every turn of the page reveals something utterly compelling whether it is a domestic scene full of intriguing, curious details or a splash page of gorgeous unexpected color. The story is deeply upsetting and tense without ever revealing too much which is my kind of horror.

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As usual, another dark hit from Emily Carroll!!! I loved the artwork in this graphic novel and the twists and turns the mystery took.

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This was a mixed bag for me and a title that I think will ultimately be forgettable for many.

This story follows Abby, a newly married woman, as she tries to navigate her relationships with her new husband and stepchild, herself... and the ghost of her husband's previous wife?

The premise sounded really intriguing to me but I felt very unsatisfied reading this story. I was confused and disinterested, though the ending did grip me and left me thinking on it for a night or two after finishing the book. I also was not a fan of the art. Most of the pages felt bland, which was worsened by the largely black and white/grayscale color palette. However, the occasional spreads that did incorporate color really wowed me; scenes with the knight took my breath away, and I found myself thumbing through to peek at the next one as I was reading.

I'm sure this is someone's favorite book and I am happy for that reader! However, this is one that I don't think will stay in my mind as the year progresses. I imagine I am not alone in that boat.

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"A Guest in the House" explores themes of obsession, love, and the enigmatic nature of Sheila's death, making it a gripping and suspenseful graphic novel for fans of horror and mystery fiction.

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Thank you to netgalley for providing a e-galley for review. A Guest in the House is the story of Abby as she navigates being a new wife to a small town dentist and step mom to his daughter after his wife died. Abby discovers some information that maybe Shelia's death wasn't as innocent as it seemed. Add in an overly friendly neighbor and you have Emily Carroll's new adult graphic novel.

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Emily Carroll does it again! I loved the art style and tone of this book - we follow Abby, who has recently married a widowed dentist and become stepmom to his daughter. Abby seems dissatisfied with her dull, colorless life as a housewife, and things aren't totally adding up when she asks questions about her husband's previous wife's death. Meanwhile, Abby has these really colorful, vivid dreams about a knight which seem to have some queer undertones. By the end, I was reminded a lot of how I felt reading When I Arrived at the Castle. I found myself questioning what was real, what wasn't, whether the narrator was reliable, and what it all meant. I like ambiguous endings, although I do wish there had been just a little more clarity. It does make you want to immediately reread to see if there's more to pick up on that you might have missed. Such great queer horror and I hope Carroll does more full-length graphic novels!

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This was a strange and mysterious graphic novel that I really enjoyed! My one complaint - and it may have been because of the galley - was that some of the dream sequence writing was next to impossible to read. I have heard from others with hard copies that this is not a problem in the finished book, so again ymmv. I always enjoy Emily Carroll’s work, and this was no exception.

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Was trying to read more graphic novels...typically not the biggest horror/suspense reader either...A Guest in the House was okay, but I'll continue on my graphic novel journey.

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While the ending was a bit confusing, I felt that I understood the story as a whole. The art, needless to say, was impeccable. It's exactly what I look forward to from Emily Carroll! I will be handselling and promoting this book thoroughly!

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The illustrations in the graphic novel were spectacular! I couldn't stop gawking over them. They were so creepy and really put the scare into the novel and story. Cannot wait to see more from Carroll.

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"A Guest in the House", by Emily Carroll, is a slow-burn, psychological and domestic horror. It was the second graphic novel I read written by Emily Carroll. I really enjoyed her debut graphic novel, "Through the Woods", and found her art style very unique and memorable. Her art style is consistently amazing in "A Guest in the House", as the illustrations, starting with the cover art, make this book compelling.

Plot-wise, the story follows Abby, a woman in her thirties, married to a recently widowed man. She is content to adapt herself to her new role of stay at home wife and stepmother to a teenager who still misses her mother. She also seems content to isolate herself from everyone else as soon as she begins her new life. Soon, she starts to suspect something more than meets the eye happened to her husband's ex-wife, and she gets herself more and more invested in trying to uncover the past.

I loved the unsettling atmosphere throughout the story, and the contrasting colors between the read life and dream sequences, which helped maintain that atmosphere all throughout. The only thing that didn't sit quite well with me was the ending. While I am not one to dismiss an ambiguous ending, this one was a little bit too ambiguous for my taste and left me turning pages trying to figure out what I may have missed, but to no avail. Still, it's a great psychological horror story, with stunning art. For fans of Emily Carroll's art, this one is a must. It's also a very fast read, so for those trying to cram books for their yearly reading challenge, like me, this one is a great pick.

Thank you to First Second Books and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. "A Guest in the House", by Emily Carroll has been out since August 2023.

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i so, so, so wanted to like this one, and the art was absolutely stunning, but there was just a little bit too much going on once the narrative reached the middle portion, which led to some major pacing issues for me. i kind of liked the slow burn pacing of the earlier portion of the book, and while i appreciated the folkloric, almost cosmic twists this title brought, the pacing and timing of the novel made it only okay for me.

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Gripping, horrifying, and a little confusing at times. I love the artwork but was frustrated by the ambiguous ending (or maybe it was only ambiguous because I couldn't figure it out). Definitely worth reading and discussing!

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I'm a big fan of anything Emily Carroll puts out and this is no exception. Her stories are always so unsettling and skin crawling in the best possible way. The art and the colours used can always be relied upon to add to the haunting aura of her stories. I loved this just as much as all her previous work!

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The use of color in the fantasy sequences was highly effective against the drab greys of the "real world." The ending could have been explained a bit more clearly.

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An absolutely stunning story with equally beautiful illustrations. I found Abby to be incredibly relatable and loved the representations of her as the knight. No one does a lyrical horror graphic novel like Emily Carroll!

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I'm a big Emily Carroll fan so I'm a bit biased but I loved this one. I wasn't crazy about When I Arrived at the Castle
but this one blew me away!

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Wow, this was an interesting read that I still don't have all the words for.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

This was my first book by Emily Carroll and now I'm hooked on her art style. I enjoyed the premise and the emotions certain scenes invoked. Would for sure recommend to anyone looking for a good, quick read.

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Wow, okay, that was creepy! This was juicy delicious creepiness, and I so enjoyed it. The art, y'all! The art was so perfect, the color sequences so gorgeous and lurid, the black and white so full of shadows and menacing vibes and then poof! all is normal again... this is a perfect October read! I don't want to say anything about the story, the blurb tells you everything you need to know, and I don't want to spoil anything. I will say, some reviews I've seen mention a Rebecca feel to this story, and there definitely is a bit of that vibe here, the second wife living in the shadow of the first, but this isn't a Rebecca retelling, so get that out of your head. Abby was so relatable to me, her masking, her people-pleasing, her trying so hard to fit in... I don't know if Carroll meant for Abby to be ND, but she sure is.
That ending, though... I have questions, but that makes things even spookier. This was amazing, just read it!

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A thirty-something, slightly dumpy woman, by her own definition at least, is happy enough to have found a husband, even if he is a dentist, with a teenaged tomboyish daughter and a dead wife. Moving into a lakeside house together, after a fire wiped out his past, the threesome try to get along in a kind of boring, quiet manner, until clues from the girl Crystal suggest to the step-mother that the ghost of the deceased is also there. Is this true, or just teenaged grief – and if it is true, who is the character of the title? And just how much is the dentist keeping his own pearly whites from ever admitting to?

I can't exactly see from where the praise for this is coming, in all honesty. Never mind the bodged visuals of the ending, what we have before then is fine – up to a point. It's just been done many times before, the woman fretting over the spouse's previous, the cuckoo syndrome or whatever it might be called at the time. I preferred the muted greys and sombreness of much of it to the more personal-seeming colour dreamscapes, of knights in armour, women in towers, drowning and whatnot. The uniform grey suggests the world where everyone is trapped in this awkward, ennui-filled, foggy, host-a-barbeque-and-speak-to-three-people world, whereas the colour insets just make it out as someone's psychosis almost. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I thoroughly regret my time between these covers, but I would never suggest to anyone else they follow me there – two and a half stars.

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